by Meghan March
His emphasis was no mistake, nor was his choice of weapon. Jeremiah knew, or at least he thought he knew, that I wouldn’t use his gun to take out Giles. Wily old bastard.
He slipped out from behind the counter again and disappeared for a moment before coming back with an old .45. He laid it on the counter and grabbed three boxes of ammo from the shelf behind him. “If I don’t hear you firing, I’ll come track you down with my AK, and it won’t be a good day.”
I would have sworn nothing could have dragged even a hint of a genuine smile from me, but Jeremiah managed with his play on the lyrics of Ice Cube’s It Was a Good Day.
“I’ll be shooting, but when I’m done, I make no promises. I might even borrow that AK.”
“Blow off some steam, get your head clear, and we’ll talk some more. I ain’t letting you do some fool thing without a fuck-ton of thought.”
3
Kane
I destroyed target after target with the .45, and with every shot, I pictured Giles’s head. Instead of releasing and letting go, my anger flamed hotter than a forge and hardened into something honed and deadly.
Giles doesn’t deserve to live. No man who raises his hand to a woman in anger does. The image of the makeup-covered bruise on my mama’s cheek and her split lip was burned into my memory like a cattle brand.
If no one else in this town would take out the almighty judge from the all-powerful family, then I had no other choice I could live with. I’d disappear, go AWOL, maybe head down to Mexico and live on a beach for the rest of my days, drinking Corona and keeping tabs on Ma from long distance.
I pulled the trigger and the pistol clicked.
Empty.
I looked down at the box of ammo.
Empty.
That meant it was time.
I made my way down the hallway behind the empty lanes and back through the heavy metal door into the store, but Jeremiah wasn’t alone.
I ducked my head, pulling my hat lower to conceal my identity from whoever was with him. The fewer witnesses, the better. “I’ll get out of your way. I can take the back door out.”
Before I could take two steps, the man standing at the counter in his slick suit turned to me.
“You’re just in time, Savage.”
Who the fuck is this guy? And how the hell does he know my name?
The back of my neck prickled with warning as I glanced up. “Don’t think I know you.”
His penetrating black stare didn’t intimidate me, but it sure as fuck unsettled me.
“Name’s Mount. I understand we have a mutual interest in Judge Giles.”
I looked to Jeremiah with betrayal burning a hole in my gut. “What the fuck did you tell him?”
Jeremiah held up a hand. “Before you go tossing out threats or doing something rash, I called in someone who could help.”
“Who? A hit man? Because I ain’t got a dime to pay anyone, and I’d prefer to handle this on my own.”
The man studied me closer. I wasn’t sure what he was seeing, but I felt like he was drilling down to the very marrow of my bones.
“I don’t do wet work anymore. Too many stained shirts. Pissed off my tailor.”
“Then feel free to forget whatever Jeremiah told you, along with my name and Giles.”
“Now, hold on, boy,” Jeremiah said. “Mount’s got a proposition for you. You might want to hear him out.”
“I ain’t your boy,” I snapped.
“No, but your daddy and I served together, and I promised to watch over you. So get your ass in here and listen up. This kind of offer doesn’t come around twice.”
Jeremiah had never sold me out before, so this betrayal stung more than I expected, but I didn’t have much of a choice. I shoved the empty .45 in the back of my jeans and let the range door close behind me.
“What kind of offer?”
Mount pulled a thick envelope from his pocket and dropped it on the counter. “Fifty grand. Half now, half when you finish the job.”
My gaze cut from him to Jeremiah and back. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
He pushed the envelope toward me with a finger. “Twenty-five K. Half of your fee. You get the second half when Giles is dead.”
What he was saying finally clicked. “You want to pay me to kill Giles? The man I already want dead? What the fuck kind of business is that?”
Mount’s expression stayed stoic. “That’s not all.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Figured there was a catch. Might as well hit me with it.”
Mount mimicked my posture, but for some reason, he looked menacing when he did. “After this is done, you do three more jobs for me. When those have been fulfilled, you can go on about your business.”
“What the fuck kind of jobs? I’m not doing shit that I don’t agree to first.”
“Kills. Hits. Contracts.”
“You want me to be your goddamned hit man? Because you don’t do wet work anymore?” I jerked my gaze from him to Jeremiah. “Is this guy fucking serious? After the first one, I’ll either end up in prison, the morgue, or in a third-world country.”
Mount shook his head slowly. “No. Because first you have to die.”
My mouth dropped open in shock. “The fuck did you say?”
“You take the twenty-five K and this phone.” He pulled it out of his pocket and set it on the counter beside the envelope. “We arrange to fake your death—throw your dog tags on a body, shove it in a shit car, burn it. Then we change how you look so not even your own mother would recognize you. Last, I tell you when and where, and you take out Giles. Call when the job’s done and you get another twenty-five K. After that, you answer when I call, do the three jobs for the same price, and then you can decide where the hell you go from there.”
I swallowed. Jesus fucking Christ. He had it all figured out, and I was still struggling to believe we were having this conversation to begin with.
“You’re serious?” I asked. “You want me to . . .” I replayed it all in my head again.
“Yes. You have five minutes to decide before I walk out that door and my offer disappears forever.”
“What if I don’t do it? You gonna farm this out for someone else to take care of?”
His expression was blank when he responded. “No. Because knowing that Giles bastard is knocking around your mother is enough to make you homicidal. You’ll kill him eventually, but you’ll do it without the fifty grand, a solid plan, and a way out. How would your mama like spending her Saturdays driving back and forth to the prison to have fifteen minutes to talk with you at the state pen?”
His words painted the picture as effectively as if he held a brush in his hand like a master artist. Giles’s brother, who was the DA, and their dirty cop of a sheriff would never let me get away with it. Hell, they wouldn’t rest until they saw me get the lethal injection.
“Kane, you should think on this. If you’re gonna do it anyway, this is the smartest option.”
This came from Jeremiah, whose advice I normally trusted. But how the fuck could I trust this guy I’d never met?
“Can’t believe you brought him here.”
Mount interrupted. “You’ve got three minutes, and I’m running out of patience.”
What the fuck am I doing even considering this? I asked myself.
“Who the hell are you, anyway?” I asked him.
“Lachlan Mount.”
“Should I have heard of you?”
The grin that tugged at his lips could only be described as feral. “No, because you don’t exist in my world. But you take this deal, and you’ll have yourself a seat at the table in it, even though you’ll be a ghost. The way I see it, you have two choices—prison, or a life you can’t even imagine. No more getting paid pennies for putting your ass on the line every day. No one making decisions for you but you.”
“And you,” I pointed out.
“For now. I don’t need a fucking pet, Savage. I need a trigger man who doesn’t
owe anything to anyone and has the balls to take a shot no one else would dare. According to your friend here, that’s you. You have one minute to decide. You in or out? Because either way, the rest of your life changes right now.”
4
Kane
One month before the funeral
“What the hell did you just say?”
Temperance, the woman I knew I shouldn’t have touched, stands in front of me trying to comprehend the bomb I just dropped into her lap. A ticking time bomb, much like the one Mount tossed at me all those years ago. It never blew up in my face, but I know this one will.
“I took a contract to kill your brother. A half million. I have thirty days to complete it before it goes back out to bid.”
Her eyes narrow and her posture goes rigid. “You piece-of-shit motherfucker!” She charges forward, bending to slam her shoulder into me like a linebacker. Someone should have told her not to try hand-to-hand combat with a man trained in it by the best.
I reach around her body to subdue her, but I underestimate just how wiry and agile she is as she twists and reaches for something on the coffee table.
The last thing I want is for her to go for a gun I haven’t already found and unloaded. Who knew one woman would be so heavily armed? Then again, considering who her brother is, I’m not all that surprised.
But she doesn’t go for a gun. She slaps the wood, palming a pen, and slashes it toward my jugular.
“Jesus fucking Christ, woman.” I shackle her wrist with one hand and twist her arms in front of her body, squeezing until she has no choice but to drop the pen.
“I’m going to kill you!”
“You’re not the first person to say that, and you sure as hell won’t be the last.”
“Yes, I will be, because I’m not going to fail.” She snarls the words as I lock her hands in front of her waist, trapping her.
“You about done?”
It’s the wrong question to ask. Temperance throws her head back, slamming it into my chin before sweeping my legs out from under me. We both go down hard on the wood floor.
She attempts to crawl away from me, but I grab one of the rips in the knees of her jeans to slow her down. It tears further as she kicks at my face.
“Calm the fuck down.”
Again, the wrong thing to say to a woman bent on homicide. Her head swivels like she’s looking for another weapon, and I use her momentary inattention to launch myself over her, landing chest to chest.
She lets out a scream that would make an Amazon proud. She swings a hammer fist toward the side of my head, and I catch her wrists in either hand and pin them to the floor.
“Let me go,” she says through gritted teeth.
“Not gonna happen.”
“Then kill me, because that’s the only way you’ll be able to walk the streets without looking over your shoulder for the rest of your life. I’ll never quit hunting you.”
The vehemence in her tone takes me by surprise—as does the fact that her threats make me rock hard.
“You’re sexy as fuck when you’re threatening to end me.”
Her nostrils flare, and for the third time in as many minutes, I realize I’ve said the wrong thing.
This is what happens when you’ve spent more time in your own head than talking to people in the last fifteen years. My social skills, which were never great, have gone to shit. I’m usually content to grunt or type my response to someone’s question, but Temperance has fucked up my life in more ways than she realizes.
She bucks her hips, no doubt trying to get me off her, but all she does is grind my hard dick into her crotch.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
Her furious brown eyes narrow. “You’ll never get away with this. I don’t care who you are. Once Mount finds out, he’ll destroy you.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. Mount already knows.”
Her face blanches, like all the blood has drained away. “What?” she whispers, blinking several times in rapid succession. “That . . . that’s not possible.”
“I told him when he called, asking me to come.”
“But—”
“But nothing. You ready to stop trying to kill me for two minutes so I can let you up? If not, I’ll stay right here as long as I need to.”
Her cheeks regain a flush of color as soon as she realizes my hard-on is notched against her pussy.
“Nothing you haven’t felt before, princess.”
She bares her teeth like a wild thing. “I can’t believe I let you—”
“Fuck you six ways to Sunday? You should probably add in there that you can’t believe you liked it so fucking much.”
“I hate you.”
For some reason, that actually makes me smile. “Haven’t you heard that love and hate are two sides of the same coin? I bet I could get you there too. Maybe just tell you that I don’t intend to bury a bullet in your brother’s head.”
Her mouth falls open and she blinks repeatedly. “You’re not going to kill him?”
“We go back a long time, and even though he obviously fucked the wrong person over in a big goddamn messy way, I don’t end people I like. The list is short enough as it stands. I don’t need to go scratching names off it for no good reason. Although, I guess I have five hundred thousand good ones when it comes to him.”
“I don’t understand. You said—” Temperance shakes her head as though she’s having comprehension issues.
I shift as her hips relax. “I took a hit. Exclusive contract. That means no one else can take the job and get paid for it unless I don’t complete it within thirty days.”
“And you’re not going to kill him.” She breathes a sigh of relief, but it’s way too soon for that.
“Don’t go thinking Rafe is out of the line of fire yet. He got himself into some bad shit, and if we get him out of this, I might still beat him to death for being so fucking stupid. That’s what gets people killed. Add on top of that all the extra work he’s made for me, and the fact Mount had to get involved, he’ll be lucky to keep his hide intact.”
“Who wants him dead?”
I shake my head. “I’m not telling you shit, because I’m sure you’ll have your little geek-squad hacker friend go trying to run them down, and then they’ll know we’re coming for them. I’m playing this the smart way.”
“Let me up. Please.”
I meet Temperance’s warm brown eyes, which are drained of the urge to murder me. At least, for now. She’ll probably want to kill me again later. I haven’t told her everything yet.
I wouldn’t be much of a hit man if I revealed all my secrets.
5
Temperance
When the man in my apartment rolls off me, so many thoughts are running through my head, I’m not sure how to deal with all of them.
Scratch that. Any of them.
As I turn my back on him and attempt to gather myself, I focus on the facts.
Someone put out a hit on my brother.
This guy—the one I know biblically, but don’t know his actual name—knows my brother.
Mount knows that he accepted a hit to kill my brother.
Because he’s a freaking hit man.
And I just turned my back on a killer.
I whip around to face him, and his expression is hard to read. If I had to guess, I’d say a mix of amusement, approval, and . . . arousal? Since apparently I caught him on the tail end of adjusting himself.
“You go back a long time with Rafe?”
For some reason, this is one piece of the bomb-dropping revelations I’m having the most trouble digesting. Right up there with the fact that he kills people. Of all the possible people in all the world, how is it that I end up banging a guy who kills people and knows my brother?
Seriously. This. Isn’t. Fair.
He nods, and it seems he’s back to his man-of-few-words persona.
“How long?”
“Long enough.”
I sta
re at him harder, like if I had the ability to shoot laser beams from my eyes, they’d be glowing red right now. “And you knew who I was the whole time?”
His face is completely impassive now. “Does it matter?”
Is he insane?
“Yes, it goddamned matters. I thought I was having some wild fling with a hot stranger, and I find out I’m banging my brother’s friend!” His lips quirk like he’s trying not to laugh, and my rage from earlier returns. “Don’t you dare smile at me.”
“Hot stranger, eh?”
“Shut up. This isn’t funny.”
“But you’re so fucking sexy when you’re furious. If I’d only known . . .”
“You would’ve told me who you were and pissed me off sooner?”
The mirth in his expression evaporates. “No. If it were up to me, you never would’ve known.” His gaze intensifies. “I knew then I never should’ve touched you.”
“Then why did you?”
His stare rakes over me, and as pissed and scared and confused as I am, I can’t help but feel the rising heat. I force it away to focus on what really matters.
“I don’t understand any of this. You’ve gotta break it down for me. Why would someone want to kill Rafe?”
“We need to move this conversation elsewhere. Somewhere safer.”
This throws me for a loop. “What do you mean?”
“Pack your bag, princess. You’re coming with me. Your boss’s orders. Or should I say, the boss’s orders.”
He doesn’t have to explain who he’s talking about, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to take him at face value either. I’m finally starting to understand this man is anything but what he seems on the surface.
“Don’t expect me to believe a damn thing you say to me ever again.” I snatch up my phone and turn to head for the bedroom.
Why did I turn my back on a killer?
I spin around, keeping my gaze locked on his face as I walk backward, my other arm stretched out behind me, feeling for my bedroom door. I shove it open and slip inside, never breaking our stare.